The T-34: The Greatest Tank of WW2?
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- Опубликовано: 11 дек 2024
- Join us on a thrilling journey through the history of one of WWII's most iconic tanks, the T-34. Was it a mechanical marvel or a death trap? Find out now!
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I love how at 5:25 he mentions “early T-34s” but the picture is a post-war East German T-34-85 😂
It's almost like archival footage is rare. It's a mystery hurrrrdurrr!11!!
A quote from another video I watched on the T-34, "It wasn't a good tank, but it was good enough."
add the fact that they had a bazillion of them to throw at the Axis......Good Enough is Good enough.
That is the thing… if the Soviets collapsed, I believe we would only have sour things to say about this tank, same as Japanese designs.
@@Vandelbergerwell... yeah? I mean if the USSR collapsed instead of helped to defeat the third reich , then the T-34 would *not* have been Good Enough. :P
Except it wasn't.
@@alyssinwilliams4570 Lol, I see what you did. It wasn’t the quality of the tanks that make or break a military, its logistics and by golly did Germany and Russia have tough time with logistics but good ol America produced so much good material. You should check out the staggering numbers of lend lease equipment the US gave Russia.
A couple of things. 1st Soviet Tank doctrine puts smaller men in the tank Corps. This was still the same up into modern times, that why everybody complains about Russian tanks being so cramped. 2nd The idea was that with mass production of the T-34, if the tank was taken out but the crew was still alive, instead of fixing it, they would just issue a replacement T-34, but also, if the crew was killed, but the tank was still serviceable just put a new crew in it. There are stories of new crews having to clean out the mess of the last crew.
Good vid
I love the phrasing of "like Marmite and Nickelback, military historians either love it or hate it." It makes me imagine a room full of military historians having heated arguments over Nickelback.
"Look at this primary source"
Famous Historian No 1 - "Screw you. It's disgusting. Tastes like heavily salted axle grease. I said as much in my best selling book"
Famous Historian No 2 - "Dumass. Have you tried it on toast? Or with a nice chunk of mature cheedar? Delicious! I say so and I've got my own TV series"
1:05 - Chapter 1 - Early designs
5:00 - Chapter 2 - Mechanical marvel
9:20 - Chapter 3 - Baptism of fire
12:35 - Chapter 4 - A return to form
Rah, thank you, lad
I studied the T-34 tank when I was doing my Manufacturing Engineering degree, and its ease of manufacture was arguably the key to the Soviet's victory. To be able to design a machine that can be quickly, easily and cheaply built is an art, and the T-34's design was genius in its simplicity.
except it was only quick on paper...mostly ran in 1st or 2nd gear, a few could get into 3rd and nobody could get it into 4th. T34-85 was OK, but T34-76 was horrible. It was not a good fighting vehicle. They seldom had radios and if they did it was usually just a receiving unit. Armor was over tempered and would shatter or spall and you never knew how good the steel was, it varied quite a bit. It was only good on paper. The gun sights were horrible as well. Early models went into battle with an extra transmission strapped to engine deck as the broke frequently. The only thing it had over the M4 was the wide tracks.
Add in that the fundamental design was so sound that every post war Soviet and Russian MBT has just been an upgraded T-34. And it's first prototype was running in 1937. No other pre-war tank can make such a boast. I'd have far rather served in a Sherman but you gotta respect the fundamental quality of the design that no other tank of it's era can match - certainly not the bloated German cats.
The T-34 was good on paper, but during the war the Soviets did not build it to spec. The results were kind of ugly. T-34-85 was supposed to be a tank killer basically, but in reality not so much. It got the Soviets through the war.
Guess you need to get back to studying then. The original design for the T-34 was actually quite expensive (on par with a Sherman), but it was also (at least on paper) a good tank (once again on par with a Sherman). The only way that they made so many of them so quickly is by massively cutting corners which made the tank worse overall. Which means that the actual T-34s used in WW2 (not the ones produced after WW2) were actually quite bad. Add on top of that that the Soviets/Russians heat treated their steel to a ridiculous degree which made it very brittle.
@@jrus690what else was it supposed to do?
I think people group the T-34-76 and T-34-85 together to much you did a bit to differentiate them but still not really lots of RUclipsrs talk about the t-34 and mean the 76 the T-34-85 is a much better tank it have a better gun and turret adds a extra man has a lot better ergonomics and a lot less mechanical issues. And to anyone wondering the T-34-85 came in later in the war in 1944 so it wasn’t at Kursk
What matters most though in terms of historical significance is the fundamental soundness of the A-20 prototype that could be repeatedly uparmored, up-gunned to become not only the T-34-85 but then upgraded with torson bar suspension and a transversely-mounted engine as the T-44 which then kept evolving first into the T-54 and right on through the T-80 and T-90. For all the faults of the T-34 there's no other pre-WW2 tank that can match that legacy.
@@j.f.fisher5318the M4 kinda beats the t34 on that, see Israels M50 (or M51?) and Argentinian modernized shermans, even by the end of ww2 you have prototypes mounting 90mm guns and the quad AA Canadian Skink
@@j.f.fisher5318all those evolved into tanks with autoloaders with all the ammo under the crew compartment so when they take a hit it tosses the turret meters into the air hilariously.
@@hithere7382just saying, that’s a huge misconception. Turrets blow up because ammo gets lit up, many Russian tankers tend to Store extra ammo in the turret, so when that gets penned, that vulnerable ammunition gets set off which causes the ammo cook off. Same thing happens in Leopard tanks too, it’s just rare because soviet tanks have much lighter and smaller turrets
@j.f.fisher5318 so thats why the t54 t80 and t90 suck so much thank you explaining that.
You could not find a picture of a T-34 for the thumbnail?
Thats a t-50? Right?
This is your criticism?
@@Istvaan12 It's an AI image. And if anything it looks like a an odd German tank.
@@TheHorzaborait's the first thing that comes to mind before the video even starts, since it's the thumbnail
@@TheHorzabora Yes, a video about the T-34 could not even bother to have T-34 in the thumbnail.
Thanks!
Legend and nostalgia make a weapon greater than it ever was. Reality is nuanced but in the end the war was won by those legends.
on all sides. the allied stuff like the norden bombsight or the b29 always treated like space tech. the same as german stuff that is always described as something from another world. in the end, the war was won by numbers.
Most wrong. Stalin begged Churchill to start an offensive operation onto continental Europe to draw the attention of the Germans away from the Eastern Front. The result was the Dieppe assault, which failed.
If you want to praise a war winning machine, look at the Lancaster bomber.
By the same token, many of us here in the West tend to be way too critical of what we used during the war and the competency of our military leaders during the war as well. For many years the M4/Sherman tank was regarded as an above-average tank design at best, the P-40 Warhawk was considered a mediocre airplane, Bernard Montgomery was not considered a particularly outstanding general outside of Britain.
The actual truth was that the M4/Sherman was a very good tank, arguably the best of the war, the P-40 while not the best was still a pretty good airplane and Bernard Montgomery for all his faults as a person was probably the most capable senior Allied commander in Western Europe. And yes I would rate Monty higher than Patton, all the criticism of him as a General come from stupid Armchair Generals who think being aggressive and hard-driving is what wins battles and wars, when warfare is far, far more complicated than that.
@@friedyzostas9998lmao cos those did great
I would love a historian giving an analysis on Marmite but especially Nickelback.
This was once again a great breakdown on a megaproject!
I'm 90% sure most of Simons thumbnails for things are AI generated at this point.
They are and usually don't even remotely resemble the subject lol
Well, it was a horrific death trap. 44,000 T-34 tanks were lost in WWII and they were also cramped and difficult to escape from.
Funny thing is the thumbnail does not even show a T-34. Looks more like some project tank taken out of World of Tanks; something akin to a mixture of French AMX and a Skoda. Haven't kept track the last few years, so might even be a complete other tank.
Just look at the thumbnail for the m3 Lee, the video for the pz 38t actually had said tank for the thumbnail but afterwards they just gave up
It honestly depends on which factory it was built in and which of the variants we are talking about but overall it's a decent enough tank for it's time
When a T-34 got knocked out, most of the crew died, and the tank was often a total loss. When a Sherman got knocked out, it usually returned to the fight (on average up to 8 times before getting written off) and most of the crew survived.
Given a choice between the two, I'd take the equivalent-era Sherman over whatever model of the T-34. Shermans worked great with infantry in a wide variety of scenarios. While tank-on-tank fights weren't all that common, Shermans did pretty well there too. It's worth noting that late-model T-34's went up against American "Easy 8" Shermans in the Korean war, and the Shermans did better head-to-head.
It is worth mentioning that M4 tank crews in Korea were better trained and more experienced than their North Korea and Chinese counterparts, so its understandable why between two comparable tank designs, that the Americans would fare better. The Americans also had M26 and M46 tanks, which were clearly more advanced and superior to the T-34.
@@madgavin7568 Yes, but that's true in general over the M4 and T-34's life time. M4 crews were always better trained and more experienced. Partly because the M4 had much better crew survivability so the crew could return to battle in a new tank while for the fresh T-34 you also needed a fresh and inexperienced crew.
@@madgavin7568 Given that most U.S. soldiers survived when their tanks got knocked out, the superior experience of U.S. tankers is another indicator of the Sherman's general superiority over the T-34 as a tank.
Interestingly, most U.S. tankers in Korea preferred the Easy 8 Sherman over the Pershing due to the Sherman's superior mobility and other soft factors.
@@willerwin3201 The biggest drawback of the Pershing tank was that it was under powered. It carried the exact same engine as the M4A3 Sherman, which combined with the fact it was almost 10 tons heavier, made for a tank that had on paper a 30mph/48kph top speed a sluggish machine.
The M46 Patton fixed this issue with a more powerful engine and more advanced suspension, and was used alongside the Sherman until the end of the Korean War after the Pershing's were withdrawn.
This is a good video if you want to start learning about tanks but i feel like theres a lot left out. Like the difference between prototypes which had 45mm guns at first or the 1940 and 1941 versions its basically just a slightly better turret mantlet and 76mm gun but still. Also no mention of the T-34-57, 1942, 1943 or E models and how different factorys didnt always build T-34s to the exact same specs so you have models like the STZ. Also there were a lot of SPGs and AA built on the T-34s chassis.
It's a short video, it can't show everything. There was no T-34 with a 45mm gun; one of the early prototypes (A20) had it. There were only a few dozen T-34-57s built so hardly a significant omission.
There are no such vehicles as "1942', '1943' or 'E' models. Those are terms made up by the Germans or western hobbyists, and were never used in the USSR. They mislead more than they explain.
There were six factories building ^T-34s so yes, each one had some minor differences, but the parts were interchangeable.
The USSR did not produce any AAA on T-34 chassis during WW2.
Russian crews loved the shermans for reasons. Being in t 34 was horrible for the crew.
Sure
Yep. The Sherman was comfortable and roomy. The T-34 was very cramped thanks to the low profile and the suspension being mostly inside the tank.
@@brennanleadbetter9708 I mean the lack of a heater didn't help during the winter either...
The tank was complete shit, but it as cheap and easy to make shit.
@@Primal-Weed read: Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza He loved it and it probably saved his life. PS: first Soviet tanks into Berlin were M4s not T-34s.
@@Primal-Weed
Do some research. The M4 was a far better tank.
The biggest pity is that with slightly slower construction and addressing early known flaws in the T-34 design , many lives could have been saved and the Germans perhaps halted earlier.
But this would have meant stopping production at a factory at a time to implement those changes.
Like the Americans, who failed to do the same to address the glaring flaws in the M4 Sherman (lack of armour, lack of firepower, tendency to catch on fire) before Normandy, it was the "Quantity has a quality all of it's own" doctrine that saw them being both inferior to the German tanks but superior in outcome.
Both the T-34 and the Sherman tanks were built to win a war, not to win tank duels.
Certainly. I don't think it gets emphasized enough that tanks mostly shot at things that weren't other tanks and got destroyed by things that were mostly not other than tanks.
Imagine a Soviet tanker reading this in 1942
@@AllMightyKingBowseroh they were well aware this was the attitude their "leaders" had
Even still, both tanks when they were up-gunned (T-34 with 85mm gun and M4 with 76mm gun) could definitely win tank duels.
@madgavin7568 You don't need a 76 to win tank duels. Most of the Shermans that fed the German KDR were the ones caught in ambush regardless of actual performance. In engagements of all types Sherman's regularly outperformed "superior" vehicles like the Panther. Sgt Pool himself regularly destroyed Panthers frontally with his 75mm M4A1
A version of the T-34. The SU-100 SPG has seen a lot of service the past few decades.
I used to have two of these, of all the crew positions, the loader had the worst job, no turret basket so he had to follow the gun, stepping on ammunition bins and avoiding spent cases. After the ready rounds were used, his job got a lot harder…
Most tanks of the period had no turret basket. In 1941, the only German tanks with turret baskets were the few hundred Panzer IVs.
@@executivedirector7467 the T-34/85 isn’t 1941 vintage…..
@@timsytanker BFD, what is your point?
wrote: "I used to have two of these, of all the crew positions, the loader had the worst job, no turret basket so he had to follow the gun, stepping on ammunition bins and avoiding spent cases."
-- Loader had a seat that rotated with a turret, so he would not have to follow the gun, stepping on ammunition bins and avoiding spent cases. It was one of the fastest rotating turret of WWII tanks!
@@timsytanker wrote: "the T-34/85 isn’t 1941 vintage….."
-- M4(76W) Sherman that was produced in 1944-45 did not have a turret basket for a very same reason of T-34 - ammo stowage was on the floor, instead of above caterpillar tracks sponsons, just so you know, FYI!
It also helped if you didn't think of tank tank crews as persons. A tradition proudly preserved in Russia.
Yeah, the T34 was among the worst tanks of the war in its weight class. Only a strategic weapon if your strategy is drowning your enemy in your own soldiers blood and have the manpower to make good on that strategy.
@@azminek7154and what tanks were better than the T-34 in its weight class? The Sherman? The same tank that would sink in Russian spring mud and thus be far too operationally limited to matter? The Pz. IV? The garbage obsolete German design that had not only atrocious armor but had an obsolete suspension system and underpowered engine that only got worse as the Germans slapped on larger guns and more armor?
@@azminek7154that’s a German myth that has time and time been proven wrong
@@honeybadger9471 Soviet propaganda doesn't destroy facts. The soviets lost three quarters of all T-34s that has been built, though a good chunk of them broke down on their own. Crew survivability was awful, something like 15-20%. That's not the hallmark of the best tank of the war.
But I find it funny how soivet propaganda works. It's so contradictory. On one hand they boast about having the best equipment, well equipped and motivated soldiers and on the other, they boast about having the most losses of all participants and that the war and the war was won mainly through their blood sacrifice. Now that's three largely mutually exclusive things. Good strategy, good equipment, high losses. What they had out of all three for sure, is high losses, so either their strategy was awful or their equipment or a combination of both.
@@Insert-Retarded-Reply-Here Yes, both of those were better than the T-34.
You all missed the part where much of that cheap & easy construction came at the cost of poor assembly, incomplete weld joints, and missing internal parts like the turret basket, or... seats.
U know that only happen around Stalingrad right?
A finished tank need to pass i factory test then deliver to army acceptance trial. Only after passing through the trial that they would be accepted into service. The idea those missing laughable.
The tanks passed would have defects not too severe and likely could be fixed by tank unit mechanics before going into battles
@@huntermad5668 no the original post was right, it was very common for "nonessential" parts to be left out to speed up production. And it wasn't until after ww2 that t-34's were made to completion.
@@peterhilligoss5697
Nope, he talked about essential parts that would be found during multiple levels of inspection.
But turret basket and seats through... the idea of that is ridiculous as those are not in shortage in any way unless during battle of Stalingrad
And yes, Poor fitting and weld were accepted if it didn't hinder the tanks too much.
@@huntermad5668 didn't hinder the tank much? a non penetrating shot would almost crack them in half! and atleast t-34/76's were built with no turret basket. would you like a source?
@@huntermad5668 did not know Uralvagonzavod was in stalingrad, they where the ones producing crap
Had the soviets built the t-34 to full standards the t-34 would have been one of the best performing tanks at the time, the reason the t-34 suffered so many mechanical failures was because during the war QA was non existent and many parts were either too brittle due to soviet heat treating during the war (which was what caused the spalling, the transmission failures and road wheels to disintegrate), not up to scratch (Like the v-2 engine) or just outright didn't get put on (like the turret basket so the gunner, loader and commander had too move around when rotating the turret)
The t-34 wasn't a cheap tank, it was just made cheaply during the war.
factory 183 produced over 50% of the t-34's during the war, in 1940 it took 6000 man hours to build 1 t-34 by late 1941 they had dropped that to under 2500 man hours, much lower than any of the other factories who were already known for cutting corners.
Sure mass production lines do get faster over time but a 60% decrease in the amount of man hours means corners are been cut
Also before the war, though the USSR cranced out over 2x as many tanks as the entire rest of the world combined had ever produced, there were no spare parts so the troops couldn't train. Then when the invasion came they were lambs to the slaughter.
So do you judge the T34 based on it's inherent design? Or do you judge it on how it was actually manufactured and delivered to combat?
Some of the crew periscopes were polished metal instead of glass, is but one example.
And while the tank crews were poorly trained, if trained at all(some had all of an hour in a running T34 before combat), the workers building the things weren't any better trained.
@@drudgenemo7030Don't get me wrong im not defending the t-34, im pointing out the fact that it was never meant to be a cheap tank but the soviet union built it cheap and they got a piece of junk and because that junk kept getting destroyed en mass they had to build more junk to replace it because they didn't have time to do it properly.
cutting corners was one of the main causes of it's terrible attrition rate but it was the only way they could get tanks out fast enough to replace the destroyed ones
@@mclaggen6144 I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely trying to expound on your point.
And lack of skilled tank crews, lack of skilled mechanics, lack of skilled commanders, and then a lack of skilled workers all add up to 70% Soviet tank crews lost. A lot of the champions of the T34 use the listed specs, even if the vast majority built weren't even close to those specs. Like the listed top speed. If you have to use a hammer to shift and are likely to break the transmission even if it works, are you actually going to be even trying to get out of 3rd gear? Then you won't be going anywhere close to listed top speed.
And IMO the Pzr3 was the overall better tank in 1939. It actually worked as advertised.
And that is exactly all soviet products. Most of the planes are pretty good on paper, but manufacturing them is different story
The German tanks were certainly more advanced and arguably "better" in many ways. But 1 really great tank is no match for 10 good enough tanks. This is why the T34 and M4 were so successful.
Right! It’s kind of hopeless when you had to face like 80000 enemy tanks 😅😅😅
German stuff always suffered from overengineering that made it hard to maintain/repair.
I disagree, German tanks were plagued with technical problems and over-engineering problems that made them, in my opinion, worse than allied tanks. It doesn't matter how thick your armor is. How big your gun is, or how fast your tank can go if it can never reach the Battlefield in general. Contrast it with something like the Sherman, where spare parts were in such a surplus and so easily interchangeable that a group of mechanics could get a broken down tank back into working order in 1 or 2 hours. The crew of the tank receiving maintenance would also most likely be given a new Sherman to roll out in any way. Meanwhile, German mechanics were pulling their hair out, trying to get a tank, like the tiger, running again.
I wouldn't say the Sherman was only "good enough". It was comparable to the Panzer IV, another medium tank.
Yes it loses to the Tiger tank, but that comparison misses a vital fact - the Tiger is a heavy tank and the Sherman a medium tank. Watch what happens when you take a heavy weight boxer against a cruiser weight.
Then there are the famous reliability problems of German heavy tanks. Take a look some time at how many tanks the Germans started the Battle of the Bulge with. Then take a look at how many actually managed to travel to the front. It's completely useless if it can't make it to the fight.
The M4 Sherman and its variants is a far superior tank than the Tiger I and Tiger 2 and all other NSDAP Armor from the Second World War (1937 - 1945).
The M4 Sherman is also the first true Main Battle Tank, not the British Challenger. As the Sherman has the versatility and general utility of a MBT.
The T34 is a fine example of "Better is the enemy of good enough." The poor crews saw the problem with that statement, though. If you don't improve 'good enough' you eventually reach the point that the T34-76 did, when it wasn't good enough any more.
-- Oh, Ulani, T-34-76 was not the end of the T-34 tank line in WWII, T-34-85 rolled out in late 1943 early 1944, with even T-44 felid tested in September of 1944.
Here is the T-44 rolling in Europe with knocked out Pz-V Panther in the ditch:
ruclips.net/video/e_vFrYt1GDE/видео.htmlsi=WE1VHObtrUnLWaX_&t=147
Is it a good tank or trash? From a design perspective it was a good design with a few trade-offs but the manufacturing is where the Soviets made mistakes. Part of it during WW2 was due to being forced to move manufacturing to a safer place but the remainder is due to Soviet myopia and obsession with numbers. You know the kind of thing that happens when your workers tend to be untrained & pushed beyond limits and Management is more concerned with numbers than quality along with keeping their position. Another issue is with the heat treating of the armor, it was hardened 430-500 brinell. This came with a trade-off that made spalling more common along with cases of projectile and high explosive rounds causing cracks that could form into larger weak points. The internal components weren't properly heat treated to save time which contributed failures.
I wasn't just spalling , the over-hardening also meant the armor would noticeably crack when hit.
Ah a fellow LazerPig enjoyer?
Why would Soviet workers tend to be untrained? And if anything the Soviets were the total opposite of short-sighted. Very heavy projection going on here.
@@alanywalany6460 We're talking about the soviet union early days along with the early part of the war. I've already acknowledged that Germany's surprise attack forced the Soviets hand in the beginning but if you read U.S military analysis on the tank you would know that the quality of the tanks were varied at best with bad welds being far too common. The British were in a similar situation but handled things differently when they sent most of their welders to work on ships they made their Tanks with riveted metal until they could train new welders while the Soviets didn't put much emphasis on quality control which is understandable for the beginning of the war but double down on production numbers even when pushing the Germans back. This decision unfortunately meant that the tank and its crew were seen as expendable while the US & UK placed more emphasis on crew survivability and repairability as the war continued. Finally the Soviets generally emphasized good education for those who showed intelligence and acumen but its heavy industry was well known for issues with safety and being behind the west. This was noted multiple times especially when a Pilot detected with a Mig-25 and analysis of the planes showed limits of metal production and foundries.
@@jacobhuff3748 Fair enough. In regards to things like toasters, cars etc though Soviet products still work to this day. Which is pretty nice, they were built to last.
At 10:40 or so....there have been a grand total of two T-34s ever photographed with spare transmissions on the deck, and we don't know why they had them. It may have been part of factory / inventory relocating.
It is a total myth that carrying a spare transmission was common. it was incredibly rare.
The T34 85 was a decently armed rank, it could deal with almost everything in front of it. Add in the ease of repair and it was a formidable tank. Nobody ever said it was perfect, it was definitely cramped in there.
-- No WWII tank was perfect, T-34 was OverAll best tank in tank trinity: FirePower, Mobility and Armor Protection, as well as easy to manufacture, maintain and repair, and ragged and reliable(again, comparing to WWII standards, including M4 Sherman).
A few more things not mentioned.
The turrets of all T 34s (not T 34 85, or the 34 100 prototypes and so on) had no turret basket, meaning the turret crew had to move with the turret on their own all while avoiding the crank shaft running in the middle of the tank, this also meant that all actions would take significantly longer the moment the turret was not in its normal position, including reloading, target spotting and aiming.
The gunner sights of the T34 prot where actually quite good for the time, unfortunately those went out the moment mass production started and the replacement was outdated and often times faulty (composition mistakes led to foggy lenses or lenses that easily cracked)
The remaining vision slots and sights suffered from a similar issue, either using low quality glass or mirrors or in case of sights polished steel plates were used, which had the bad habbit of attracting dust and dirt quite a bit more than mirrors and glass did
The gearbox was also suffering from many issues, most of which affected the driver, rather than the gearbox itself. Changing gears could be next to impossible by human power alone, forcing many T34s to drive much slower than advertised, especially in combat. While proper implementation of infabntry support negated this issue a bit it still stands as an issue that your mobile medium tank struggled to get above 10km/h off road during combat...
The armour also had multiple issues, similar to late war german armour, its steel composition was bad and it was overhardened to compensate. this over hardened armour had the great effect of spalling far more than usual, sending small pieces of hot shrapnel into the crews faces with each and every hit, at times from calibres as small as aircraft cannons (20-30mm).
Most of these got fixed post war, hence why so many early post war accounts of the T34 have no mention of them. The Soviets also made sure to only give the best examples of the tank to non USSR, non "allied" nations post war (when it was no longer in active service).
Also, the T34 was not standardised. It was on paper, but in reality you could not exchange parts from one build in factory 1 with one build in factory 2. The war did not allow for such care. But the parts where designed to be easy to manufacture and in large quantirty, so each individual factory could produce tanks faster than any german one which heavily focused on percision of each part
Might be an urban legend but apparently these tanks drove out of the factory and headed straight to the battlefield. Definitely an iconic tank, and I think one factor that contributed to the Soviet/
Allied victory
It is true for Stalingrad, because Stalingrad Tractor Plant was one of the main producers of T-34 and largely wasn't evacuated.
@@konstantinriumin2657 yes and no, the factory had already lost power when Stalingrad came under siege but they had multiple unfinished t-34's that were operable and were mainly used as artillery, hence the reason it looked like they were rolling straight onto the battlefield
This was supposedly true in Stalingrad, however, this was a factory with no supply and no power so it was more likely a case of finished tanks being used in the area.
And incomplete welding. Just tack welded together. Gasps in the welds so molotovs, flamethrowers and HE weapons would get in. They knew those tanks had minimal chance of survival of a hit, but it meant more guns on the field to keep Stalingrad alive another hour or two they were willing to use them.
@@jrus690
No, it wasn't.
Germany, caught between two enemies who had the same philosophy. "Quantity has a quality all it's own."- Stalin referring to the T-34. The Sherman was the US's rendition of, always improvising, never-ending supply all time classic.
Now do one on Sherman's
Tank that has all of t34s positives with no of its downsides
Way slower than the T-34. More expensive to produce. Much weaker armour. Much harder to maintain. Not suited to the colder climate of the Russian winter. Far weaker gun once the Soviets used the 57mm and 85mm guns. Much easier to set on fire, especially the M4A1 and M4A3.
The Sherman has plenty of downsides. Your bias is showing.
Each was built for a different theater of war, and the Sherman never had to face the volume of the prime German gear (tanks and planes) that the T-34 did. German losses on the Russian front were three times higher versus all other theaters combined.
T-34's were for at least some part of the war driven unpainted with a fraction of a tank of fuel straight from the factory into combat with no testing or quality control. Based on that it's pretty hard to make an accurate comparison.
@AndyViant an actual functioning transmission. A short-stop stabiliser, armour that won't shatter into the crews when hit, wet ammo storage in later versions, more hatches, padded seat, 76mm was just as good as 85 and 57mm, M3 75mm was better than F-34, periscopes, the potential for driver to reach full speed.
@@AndyViant T34 will only beat a Sherman in a drag race, on soft terrain, and then only 30% of the time, fo reverything else it's inferior. The Sherman was also a great example, of good enough and made in big enough quantities to win.
@@AndyViant
1 - top spead means fuckall when you never gonna use it
2 - this weaker armour went toe to toe with tigers
3 - why would it need cold climate functionality when it was used in warm and tropical climates ?
4 - this weak gun still killed tigers without probelm
5 - so ? oh no outer layer of armour is on fire, if its a problem each crew member has a hatch they can escape with, Shermans have highest survival rate for crews of entire war
6- we face more enemies thats why our tank is better - what kind of logic is this ? By your logic sino-japanise war was most important theathre of the war because it had most casualites
7 - ah excuses - we had to make shit tanks from shit parts because germans were advancing
amazing what competent workers in normal country can make right ?
t34 had a point of excellence - very good for the money. and in fact, however rough, it was better than the the opposition until the panther/tiger came on line. even then, it was good enough plus great numbers.
unquestionably the best tank of the war, if winning is the measure.
Ah, that new tank smell😎
The key was that the Ford Motor Company built the Soviets state of the art factories that were transportable also. With them replacing the badly antiquated WWI factories production of tanks and planes was dramatically higher giving T34 staggering numerical advantages.
But, T-34 engine was not build by Ford Motor Company, in fact best Ford tank engine was vastly inferior to 500 h.p. Aluminum block direct fuel injection diesel engine with Dual Overhead Camshafts(DOHC) with 4 valves per cylinder, FYI! The result was far superior and maneuverable tank, that any Ford engine could be:
ruclips.net/video/o1wf1xE1MTE/видео.htmlsi=e146m9RW6HM5swvW
@@RussianThunderrr Zhukov «Right now they say that the Allies never helped us... But you cannot deny that Americans drove many materials, without which we would not be - 119 - able to form our reserves and could not continue the war ... And how much steel they supplied! Could we quickly establish the production of tanks, if not for American aid? And now they show it in a way that we had plenty of sources.»
PDF Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 1941-1945
@@nickdanger3802 wrote: "Zhukov «Right now they say that the Allies never helped us... But you cannot deny that Americans drove many materials, without which we would not be - 119 - able to form our reserves and could not continue the war ... And how much steel they supplied! Could we quickly establish the production of tanks, if not for American aid? And now they show it in a way that we had plenty of sources.»
PDF Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 1941-1945"
-- What is that got to do with false claims that Ford build all factories, including the one that build T-34 engine and other aircraft engines?
-- BTW not only in Soviet Union, but in Germany Henry Ford build factories that was producing state on the art trucks, for that he was awarded Grand Cross of German Eagle by A. Hitler himself in 1938. Germany was considered a belligerent nation.
@@RussianThunderrr The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,[1][2] was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with a secret protocol that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.[3] Unofficially, it has also been referred to as the Hitler-Stalin Pact,[4][5] Nazi-Soviet Pact,[6] or Nazi-Soviet Alliance.[7]
@@nickdanger3802 wrote: "The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,[1][2] was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with a secret protocol that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.[3] Unofficially, it has also been referred to as the Hitler-Stalin Pact,[4][5] Nazi-Soviet Pact,[6] or Nazi-Soviet Alliance.[7]"
-- So? Are you confused once again? How is Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, supports or denies Martinishot claims that he made a week ago, that Klimov's and Mekulin's aircraft engines, as well as K. Cheplan's W-2 T-34 engine, and other Soviet tank engines were made in Fords factories? Ford's tank engine was not near as advanced as T-34 engine, so what is your point, or you just throwing "mud" around and see what will stick?
T34 was taken to Britain to put it up against the British tanks. It had only two things going for it first was a bigger gun the second was sloped armour that was it. It was had to drive and badly put together for starters.
They were not expected to need refuelling as the would have been destroyed or broken down. It was the numbers that was its the winning thing. The USSR got so much from Britain and the USA, without all that help the Eastern Front would have been different. You won't see movies or old films of the Red Army using foreign equipment as that would go against the myth of the great Red Army.
That is of course complete nonsense. You can google all kinds of film of western equipment in soviet use. it'lltake you about ten seconds to disprove your own claim.
The T-34 was vastly better than anything Britain built except for perhaps the Cromwell, which was in most respects its equal, and the small numbers of Comets. But those tanks debuted in 1944 and 1945 respectively, so earlier in the war they just didn't exist.
5:24 wrong picture (that's a late version t-34-85), hits an eye and drops the level of trust to the whole project...
My grandfather was mobilized back in 1941, fought as a T-34 commander from Stalingrad to Vienna, was injured in the tank four times - and died in 1980s thanks to smoking. Not really a death trap, if you ask me
80% lost.
That's how statistics work, right. Base your opinion on a single anecdotal example and completely disregard everything else. Nice
Lazerpig sends his regards...
LazerPig won't be happy, lol
who cares about drama queens?
@@IdeI2StOnEd Considering that *drama queen* destroys Simon on quality research, I think a good chunk of people who actually want to know things care.
Zhukov «Right now they say that the Allies never helped us... But you cannot deny that Americans drove many materials, without which we would not be - 119 - able to form our reserves and could not continue the war ... And how much steel they supplied! Could we quickly establish the production of tanks, if not for American aid? And now they show it in a way that we had plenty of sources.»
PDF Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 1941-1945
Go watch Lazerpig's video on the t-34 for a more in depth analysis/critique
one of Lazerpig's better vids!
Completely nonsensical video.
The 12 July 1943 Battle of Prokorhovka was a slaughter of Soviet armor, but their sacrifice caused Hitler to order a halt to further offensive operations on the southern Kursk flank, to Von Manstein's consternation. He felt the Panzerwaffe was on the verge of imflicting a defeat that would have impelled them to call off their attack at Orel. Still, its hard to say that overall the war's outcome wouldve been much different. Maybe with the Americans and Soviets linking up on the Oder or even Warta instead of the Elbe.
Iconic tank of ww2 but thats about it
It’s an equivalent of Ford T/Iron Lizzy of WW2, its ruggedness and simplicity, relatively decent bang for a very small buck is its biggest greatness, like AK 47 T34 can be assembled, serviced and used by any 16 year old kid because it’s so simple , rugged and primitive
@@Nikowalker007rugged? It’s a pile of s**t
@@Nikowalker007The Sherman was all of these things while also managing to actually be a good tank.
Great Video.
Legendary tank
For being shit.
nah
the way you said Nickleback made all the pain in my life a little bearable.... I wasnt always such a miserable person. I mean, look at this photograph, every time i do it makes me laugh.
The T-34 is definitely the greatest cannon fodder in ww2
After Soviet soldiers 😂
Pretty on brand for the Soviets tbf
10 blown up t34s and 1 dead tiger is still 1 dead tiger
after listening to lazerpig about this iron coffin, and looking at the statistics, pictures of how this thing was destroyed, and hearing the phrase "good at large numbers", this tank should have been scrapped long ago
So the T34, designed in Kharkiv with armour from Mariupol was.....basically Ukrainian?
Untill the dissolution of the Soviet Union an insane amount of Soviet equipment was designed and built there. Hell, Russia still hasn't replaced some of the incredibly important Ukrainian infrastructure that they lost access to then.
Russian senior officials, Putin included, have some kind of roots in Ukraine. Putin’s parents were stationed in Ukraine as naval engineers, he might have grown up in today’s Ukraine? His defense minister is half Ukrainian (his mother is Ukrainian). In fact, almost all Russian I know in US has at least 1/4 Ukrainian blood. Most of Russian restaurants in LA or NYC are in fact Ukrainian. So this war in Ukraine is really like a civil war to them
correct. Basically anything of value besides the AK 47 was developed and produced in Ukraine. Same goes for the Antonov 225 or the Moskva (Black Sea Russian Flagship, under Russian leadership promoted to submarine)
No. It was soviet; the modern political unit of Ukraine did not exist except as a federated unit of the USSR.
T-34 is a icon amongst tanks
The Tiger laughs diabolic
01:01 - Finally here!
Like the Spitfire, this is a legend of WW2!
The London Imperial war museum has given it high praise
I have seen it in person when Russia lended 1 to the museum back in 2011 (Russia was on much friendlier terms then)
But the Hurricane did most of the heavy lifting/damage to the German Luftwaffe.
@EK14MeV
Yes 2 more legends along with the Lancaster Bomber and the Japanese Mitsubushi Zero's
I saw one at a scrap yard in Somerset was in good nick
@leemichael2154
1 what?
@@EAWanderer aT34 Russian tank
The soviets lost around 45 thousand T-34s
That alone says a lot...
The war built T-34s were absolutely awful, essentialy in every aspect. They were this bad, because corners were cut whenever and wherever it was possible which lead to absolutely unreliable coffins...
The post war T-34-85 was... aight. When built to the standard they werent awful, but still werent great as a lot of issues still were there. They were not the easiest tanks to work at, the fuel tanks were still on the inside in the crew compartment, it was still cramped and difficult to get out of when hit.
Funny how many people call the T34 junk because of its 1:3 kill rate vs german tanks. The Sherman did not fare (much) better against the Panther and won because of their numbers, just like the T34. The main difference is the quality of manufacturing and repairability. And that the T34 was manufactured in a country that lost 1000km of land, which included the former locations of the tank factories to the Germans, while the Shermans were safely built 7000km from the front.
Not to belittle the repairability of the Sherman or enormous feats of American logistics, but the Soviets did an excellent job with the T34.
Another nice detail, both the tank and its motor originated from the Ukrainian SSR.
Lazerpig has a good vid on this but the loss rare of the Sherman was far better
M4s did not have a negative loss ratio.
The V-2 engine is a copy of a foreign powerplant; it didn't originate in the USSR at all. And there's nothing wrong with that - everybody copied from everybody. It would have been foolish to do otherwise.
5:09 The still-frame from of this second a video depicts Fact Boi (longtime ally of the one I shall only refer to as "The Fiend", or, "The Keeper"), holding his hands, palms together, in a priest-like fashion. Take note that the door is always positioned in such a ways to depict a torture device, upon which one's legs are splayed and lock to either side of the bottom of the device while your arms are wrenched around in a spiral fashion by a large lever, which is the only means of releasing the agony of the top of your spine being pushed away from the base of your skull. Very much like when two advertisements come on directly after an in-video ad read.
Most people don't realize just how unreliable that thing is also it wasnt as cheap as some people gave been lead to believe.
Yes. It was only cheap because it was cheaply made. The armor was sloped because of all corners that had been cut. 😁
@@p.strobus7569No, regardless of if it's a joke or not, that Germans actually preferred flat armor because they didn't have the weld quality and doctrinally preferred flat armor for, in English, bracing. Just like we saw with the Sloped King and Panthers, their plates were too weak to resist bending. Flat plates (especially stepped hulls) had much smaller, thicker plates increasing the leverage of the sides.
@@nicholaspratt8473 I was commenting on the build quality of what was a decent but unremarkable tank with significant flaws (like a sub 15% crew survivability rate because fuel was kept in the crew compartment and the doors were small). People act like sloped armor was a war winning innovation never seen before yet both the Snider and Little Willie had slopes.
@@p.strobus7569 Yeah, like most things, not an invention, but a doctrinal shift
@@nicholaspratt8473 The cheap manufacture (the main plant produced T-34s with barely half the man hours needed to competently produce one) undercut any doctrinal shift. They were cheaply made, their crews rarely survived, were nearly blind for the commander and hard to communicate within and between. If the USSR hadn’t been able to pour out the lives of its people with the indiference of a tsar for his serfs, the western border of the USSR would have been the Urals.
A big reason the USSR had so many dead is not the savagery of the conflict (though it was savage) but the purblind idiocy and logistical ineptitude of their commanders.
Of course it was the best tank. Built out of Stalinium and Hardbass, the perfect machine. Another banger, fact boy. Had no idea about the T-34's actual history or the variants
Lazerpig did a nice video on this POS :D
FOR THE PIG!!!!
The T-34 in DESIGN was one of the best tanks in WW2. In PRACTICE however...well... they didn't really have time to build them to spec while the Wehrmacht was rampaging across Russia. Shoddy welding, hastily and improper alloy mixes, an underpowered gun that had a nasty tendency to overheat after only a few shots and usually missing key features because they just needed to get on the battlefield as fast as possible led to Soviet crews have a life expectancy of around 2 weeks. After the war, with the T-34-85 improvements and when they had time to actually build them to spec, it performed admirably and is still in used in many countries today.
The Soviets had a saying:
A T34 always tips its hat to a tiger. Due to the Tiger’s always blowing the turrets off of the T-34.
You’re right, but the T 34 was always about being able to be produced quickly and cheaply. It doesn’t matter if you make the greatest tank in the world if your enemy can out produce you by a factor of 100.
And today there's not a single tank fighting anywhere in the world that's based on any of Germany's bloated cats. But the direct descendants of the T-34 are duking it out in Ukraine. German tanks were not only inefficient and unreliable but technological dead ends. The T-34 was so fundamentally sound in its basic design it just kept getting upgraded until the modern T-80 and T-90. And incidentally the US Army did a study of the battle of 73 Easting that concluded if the two sides swapped tanks and everyone did the same things in the battle the outcome would have been the same - it's not the M1 that wins America's wars but the constant exercises, simulator training and NTC.
@@j.f.fisher5318 There is a reason the US military is so dominant. One is what you mentioned earlier - superior funding, training, etc. But also superior equipment. Its a hell of a lot easier to win when you have better tanks and planes and the logistics to support them.
@@j.f.fisher5318 lol literally every modern Western tank is based on the layout of the Panther
@@AllMightyKingBowser true, the godfather of all MBT's
Back in the nineties the T34 was still is use in serious numbers in the Balkans . They were first deployed by the JNA, the old Yugoslav national army , and later supplied to the army of the republic of Srebrenica . They clearly had a long service history and good mechanical reliability.
Depends when and where they where made
@@sH-ed5yf Russia. They were fitted with American made 50 Cal machine guns on the roof. We took one down from a wreck and it was marked as '' General Motors 1942 !''
Apart from that they were just straight wartime T34 tanks., no IR or other mods.
The main flaw of the T-34 was that it was operated, commanded and maintained by one of the most disorganised armies on earth.
And built by, that part is important too.
Ergonomics were horrific, that I think is the real worst element. So cramped you couldn't shift around at all, tired crews out really quickly.
Certainly this was true at the beginning of the German invasion thanks to Stalin's purges, but by the end of the war the Red Army was pioneering doctrines like deep battle at an enormous scale. The portrayal of the Soviets as callous human wave hordes that won through numbers alone is one that was somewhat a product of the cold war. They of course did suffer horrific casualties throughout the war and Stalin was a callous monster, but there are reasons beyond those (and beyond lend lead and the allied bombing of German industry) that explain why they defeated Germany in the second world war.
@@specialagentdustyponcho1065also no turret basket.
@@xevious4142deep battle predated the purges.
In fact, proponents of deep battle were major victims/targets of the purge.
They only returned to that doctrine and training towards the later stages of the war.
I have only ever read (60 years+-) the transport tracks of The Tiger were used because of the narrowness of the rail systems at that time.
@lazerpig
As to the effective thickness of the sloped armor, at a 45 degree angle it's not "twice as thick," rather it's the actual thickness times the square root of 2. In the example of 45 mm armor, that gives an effective thickness of 63 mm and a bit.
Two man turrets and lack of radio gear doomed the early models to destruction (as well as valuable crewmen).
Given working communications gear, an upgraded gun and an extra man in the turret put it on par with the best the Germans had.
Hey Simon in your next video you should talk about the next generation of the Abrams the M1E3
I have that covered already :)
The German Panther's sloped turret were a direct copy of the T34.....
The T-34 was designed, not to be reliable, but to be built cheap and fast. Russia figured out that their average armored unit lasted about 14 hours on the front line, so they didn't see a need to make the T-34 great. It just needed to be good enough. So it was cramped and sucked major donkey dick to crew, had enough armor to take hits from most infantry weapons and had a big enough gun to kill anything it came up across. Russian doctrine was pretty much the same as army ants. Overwhelming numbers and massed assaults combined with metric shit tins of artillery.
The T-34 itself was not great, it was it's application that made it so effective.
When i was a child in Poland, there was one in a park in Gdansk (as a monument). I would climb it etc. Its not there anymore...
I read somewhere that around 70% of soviet soldiers who had tank training were killed. Not casualties, killed. The Americans in the much maligned Sherman suffered less than 5%.
Insert that idiotic book that should not be named and its author that forgot the therm "Survivor bias".
That’s because the western front was Tiddlywinks compared to the eastern front. Over 80% of the German military were defeated on the eastern front.
It’s estimated that the T-34 had a crew survivability rate of about 15%.
@Primal-Regime only partly. Combat was more intense in most of the East, except maybe the bocage. And there was more tank fighting. But a tank hit by an 88 has the same problem wherever. Sherman ergonomics were much better. It's possible to leave it a hurry. The fact that t-34 drivers were picked from the smaller cohort of recruits.... shows a different philosophy. Another fun fact: British KIA using the Sherman were somewhat higher, 15% ish, because the crews didn't wear the helmets (provided) and stuck to berets. 🤔
This is that Lazerpig video but with class.
The tank that won the war. May not have been the best tank on the battlefield, but it was the most effective. It was good enough in combat, it was good enough defensively, it was able to be produced in mass, and it could be easily transported. All of it's non combat qualities were ahead of the German tanks on every level.
It was the *least* effective tank of the war. It was losing 5 tanks to Germany's 3. If the USSR had any less support, it would have crumpled.
The Sherman was an equal design wise but built way better.
Every tank is a horrible death trap when hit with an overpowering weapon. Be it 75,88,120,122,128 or ATGM.
Quantity has a quality all of its own
Says an idiot.
@@UmbraFauxif tank is capable enough, it works, it's not like t34 can't perform tank jobs
@@vipvip-tf9rw If it had been built to specifications, sure. But it wasn't. It was an expensive tank built cheaply and thus is suffered the most losses of any tank in the war.
And if the Germans weren't tied down with the English and Americans in the west, Soviet Russia would have fallen.
@@UmbraFaux english and Americans were across seas
@@vipvip-tf9rw ...Yes. How could I forget that the Normandy landings were across the mighty sea. How could I forget that the battle of the bulge happened across the sea. How could I forget that there was absolutely no way the Americans and English were tying up parts of the German war machine in other parts of Europe.
Think before you speak next time. It'll help you look a bit smarter.
If you want good quality T-34, look into those T-34/85 produced in 1946 and then later those produced since 1951 in former Czechoslovakia in licence.. that is completely different vehicle when compared to initial productions or crude tanks assembled under constant war issues.
wrote: "If you want good quality T-34, look into those T-34/85 produced in 1946"
-- No T-34 was produced in 1946! Those was T-44, followed by T-54 in 1948.
-- Also if you read 1951 CIA report on captured T-34-85, you'll know everything you'll want to know about quality of Soviet tanks of that era, in comparison to American tanks.
Let's not forget why the Russians could build so many tanks, the Allies supplied them with other vehicles like the thousands of trucks.
and aluminium, aluminium is "very expensive" but USSR did waste it on tank engines, lucky for them US supplied them with aluminum.
Not before 1943 they didn't.
@@executivedirector7467 actually the Amerca's first convoy of goods was in August of 1941.
@@charlescaine6022 Which is of symbolic value only. All of the shipment records of lend-lease are easily available. What it shows is that almost nothing went to the USSR in 1941-42, i.e., the critical period they had to survive. Shortly after Stalingrad, i.e., the summer of 1943, those LL shipments start really kicking in and remain massive for the rest of the war.
Anyway: it's a very rational approach to specialize in what you're good at in economics. It's called comparative advantage and it is taught in any intro econ class. It happens to be true that the USSR was e.g. very good at building good tanks and artillery pieces, and not so good at building high quality trucks. It made total sense for the USA, which easily built hundreds of thousands of very high quality trucks, to supply those to the USSR. By 1945 something like 1/3 of all the trucks in the red army were US made. But virtually all their artillery was soviet-made, and most of their tanks. That made sense. In what world is that the wrong thing to do?
Likewise there was a US proposal in 1943 to have Britain stop producing tanks completely, since they weren't making any good ones, and just completely equip with the very plentiful M4 tanks they were getting. It could have freed up British productive capacity for some other use. But they didn't do it, and frankly that was a mistake.
@@executivedirector7467 we did Land Lease with the British not with the Soviet Union, i.e. the Russians.
They always say wars were won with factories and the ability to replace your losses quickly and efficiently. 17:43
One of the worst tank designs ever made.
42,000 out of 57,000 produced during the war destroyed giving it the worse combat loss record in history
Add to that, all of war time produced models got scraped or sent into museum's right after 1947 (even soviet puppets didnt want to have them, so they produced their own models)
i guess it cost something to fight the germans all by themselves.
Although it's probably not worthy of a video The concept of the Soviets dismantling their factories under fire and attack moving them across the country reestablishing them and getting them in operation is a mega project of its own.
Yes, massive achievement, but not done "under fire". They had a plan and carried it out *before* most of the factories got within range of any German weapon.
1:15 wee 😂😂😂 good one
Where I will give the T-34 its due is with its simplicity; T-34 factories in WW2 weren't sophisticated, but they didn't have to be. T-34 crews were generally not that skilled, but they didn't have to be. The Soviets knew they could win if they could push T-34s and crews to the front faster than they'd break down, get knocked out, and their crews die. The production rate won out over the loss rate, but only just. In WW2, the Soviets produced 55,000 T-34s and lost 44,000.
The T-34 was almost the perfect tank for the Red Army of WWII. The vehicle cannot be blamed for flaws in doctrine and crew capability. The flaws of the T-34 (cramped, poor visibility, no radio) certainly led to losses, but the Red Army could and did absorb those losses. Whatever its flaws, it played a huge part in winning WWII.
Interestingly, the modern Russian army seems to have retained the idea that personnel and equipment losses are of limited concern. Really, the T-72 family of tanks is built on almost the same concept. large numbers of tanks that are good enough. The problem for the modern Russian army is that it has nowhere near the manpower or production capacity to support this concept.
The T34s built during the war did have problems with their armor as thr steel was heat treated to be too hard and wouldnt have the ductility it was designed for. It would generally crack when hit by high caliber rounds.
I would argue that context is key, every tank is either a good fit for the country operating it or not, the t-34 did not fit the soviet union, it needed some major refinement before it would be a good fit for the USSR. Production, maintenance and supply needs are part of the fundamental design of a tank and a country's ability to service that need is how we should be judging the t-34. To be honest the Theoretical design was good for 1940 but not truly excellent, The suspension was overcomplicated and took up valuable internal volume, Having every side of the tank sloped to such a degree robbed even more volume, and made it incredibly cramped and placed limits on what equipment could be put in the tank, The armor was brittle due to overhardening which would cause Spawling when hit with enemy fire, and the tracks, turret, and transmission were poorly designed. The soviets only needs so many tanks because they lost so many tanks, and more importantly their crews, the survival rate was Truly abysmal. The Soviet Union needed a better version of the T34 that survived longer so that they didn't need to constantly drop the quality so it could shovel more tanks in to plug the Breeches. A quick synopsis of a better design would be to either have the sides only Moderately sloped about 10 degrees or just vertical, that frees up space on the inside and allows for a wider turret. Change the suspension to a Sherman style bogey system, this is not only easier to manufacture and maintain but is Pretty much completely external so it doesn't take up space on the inside of the take. Next the tracks add rubber to the road wheels and return rollers and if we are staying with the single pin tacks add that block that knocks them back in from the get go not after the war. Since the turret can be wider lets expand it so it has more room, we can make it a roomy 3 man turret with a turret basket. The transmission, just heat treat the parts and it at least will not break after a couple hundred km, though a much different, better transmission would be preferable. Don't harden your armor plate so hard that it becomes brittle.
Please do a video on Canfranc International Train station, its a great story and perfect for Megaprojects.
That music introducing the first part always reminds me of SpongeBob 😂
Quantity is a quality of its own.
05:02 - LOL 😂😂😂
1 way to have fun with a freshly made tank!
When you speak of this things bold man you should always take in to consideration that had not been these t34 and russians you would speak german as your native language. Don't you ever forget that.
It may have been inferior to the german armor...but the Soviets had the men and materials to spend, and spend it they did, to ultimate victory.
That T-34 in the thumbnail is cursed
I suppose I'd rather have a T-34 than Studebaker truck with a machine gun, but it certainly doesn't make my shortlist for great tanks.
-- Why wouldn't it? It could do things M4 Sherman never could... Something like that:
ruclips.net/video/o1wf1xE1MTE/видео.htmlsi=e146m9RW6HM5swvW
T-34 was a cheaply build expensive tank. It was a winning weapon? yes. But for some production issue, the quality of the tank were obscured by the fact that a lot of them simply break up even before entering combat.
Quantity has a quality all its own
Very low quality in most cases.
As Stalin is reported to have said: "Quantity has a quality all of it's own."
No tank had as much of an impact on the war nor as much influence on the evolution of the tank as the T-34. So yes it was the greatest of the tanks of the Second World War.
Yes it had poor ergonomics and was a bit of a death trap if things went wrong even for its time. That is also true of the Sopwith Camel and many other “greatest” types of weapons from wars.
I'd say its influence is overstated. If you mean by influence the birth of the MBT concept.
@@azminek7154 Its diesel powered and had its transmission in the back, quite a novelty for its time. But the most important thing is that it helped defeat evil
@@lugerun It also helped defend evil. Stalin's Soviet Union that is. They were not one bit better than the nazis. And all allied tanks helped to defeat the nazis.
@@azminek7154 Guess who dropped nukes on civilians? Still nothing compares to the atrocities of the fascists and their ideology. And its sickening how people like you are still tryharding to normalize and defend it
@@lugerun The Soviet Union was no less a totalitarian state than Nazi Germany was and committed plenty of its own evil. For one: The Holodimir…
Something they forgot to mention is that the drive from karkevi to Moscow CAUSED THE CREATOR TO DIE OF AN ILLNESS. One he got while driving it to Moscow. Gotta love it, foreshadowing. Lol
Everyone can sit on sidelines and say this or that is junk but when you are facing one that’s when things pucker up
When properly built, they were decent, not great, but not terrible albeit with terrible crew conditions.
The problem was they weren't built properly.
Many T34 tanks are poorly built as well as being properly built. In order to produce huge numbers of T34 tanks, standards are often lowered in order to achieve that goal. There are accounts where many tank crews are killed not by enemy fire but by the splinters from the brittle steel used for tank construction. Overtime the T34 has gone through changes in design as well being reequipped with a much more power and longer ranged guns. Also Soviet tank crews have gained enough combat experiences to develop better and more effective strategies which reduces the numbers of Soviet casualties as well as inflicting greater casualties on the Germans.
@@MrLantean Fully aware of its history and its strengths and weaknesses. Still, many T-34's were poorly built. Shit welding and brittle metal being some of them. The list is way too long. Not saying the design was bad, just overrated with an unreliable engine and poor ergonomics and crew comfort. Quality got better later in the war when the tides turned and the soviets had time to produce quality tanks since they were no longer losing them faster than they could build them.